Can the eliminator breathe fresh life into cross-country mountain bike racing?

Can the eliminator breathe fresh life into cross-country mountain bike racing?

Cast your mind back to 2010 and Vancouver, Canada – ski cross and snowboard cross appeared on the Winter Olympic programme for the first time and took the Games by storm. Can the cross-country eliminator, which follows a similar format, breathe new life into mountain bike racing?

Crowds lined Dalby’s streets for the eliminator event ahead of last year’s World Cup

The eliminator made its World Cup debut in Houffalize, Belgium, at the weekend and a rainbow jersey will be up for grabs when the event is included as part of the World Championships for the first time in Saalfelden, Austria, in September – and the UCI hope to add the event to the Olympic schedule in the future.

The eliminator follows a similar format to ski/snowboard cross. Riders qualify in a time trial before racing through four-rider heats, with the fastest two progressing, eventually reaching the final, going shoulder-to-shoulder for the top spot on the podium.

Ski/snowboard cross proved a huge hit with crowds in Canada and the eliminator has all the ingredients to emulate that success – hell-for-leather racing over a short, compact course, with the event decided over just a few hours and a gold medallist at the end . All that, and its easy-to-understand format, makes it ready-made for television, an area where mountain biking has traditionally fallen short.

Great Britain’s Annie Last won the inaugural women’s World Cup event, while Brian Lopes took the men’s title. With the racing taking place less than 48 hours before the elite cross-country events, many riders were unwilling to sacrifice their race legs but a reverse in the race schedule will solve that problem, according to Simon Burney, former Great Britain team manager and now a UCI official.

“We want to try and make the eliminator after the cross-country World Cup where we can,” Burney told Shimano Race TV (watch the video below). “When we do that we should see more support from the big guys. We’ve got the World Championships for the first time this year in Saalfelden, Austria, so when there’s a World Championship jersey at stake then the team’s will be more excited about having those guys compete.

“And at the World Championships the eliminator will be after the cross-country – the cross-country will be on the Saturday and the eliminator on the Sunday – so I think there we’ll see a lot more of the big names competing.

“And the dream? The vision for the future, because we’ve always got to try and keep progressing, is to have the eliminator as an extra Olympic medal event in the future. That’s what we’re driving towards. Whether it happens or not we need to see, but we need to have that ambition and that focus.”

This translates to a London 2012 course which has been designed on an open hillside, allowing spectators to view multiple sections of the race from one vantage points, while the track has been updated following last year’s test event to allow for more overtaking.

And while cross-country may remain the holy grail for riders, the eliminator offers a ready-made race format to lead the sport in the 21st Century.

Can the eliminator breathe fresh life into mountain bike racing? Tell us in the comments section below.

It can, but not the way it is edited on the RedBull stream. Having it live just makes it dull to watch, with lots of hanging around. The camera work was really boring and didn’t get into the thick of the action. Where are the bike mounted cameras? Shots throughout the course showing the expression of the riders? Not expecting Michael Mann esque film making, but it’s really quite boring to watch.

George_Scott

3 years ago

Agreed – this is one area mountain biking really has to work on, getting the TV shots which reflect the action, rather than just a couple of camera setup to show the riders going past.

The delay between eliminator heats is always going to be problematic for a live stream like RedBull’s. Where they can really make it work is in the highlights package and, when it comes to the Olympics, the short heats would make it easy for TV producers to cut back to the action from other sports, like they did with ski cross in Vancouver.

Andrew Robertshaw

3 years ago

I think making XC “telegenic” is such a key to both public interest and bike sales that onboard cameras should be part of the entry requirements.

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